Bieber no show, disappointment

The sole point of this blog post is to disappoint you.

There was no Beiber performance at my church. After rehearsing the song a bit Samuel and I decided that we didn't quite have the voice to sing that high for so long so we thought it might no be a good idea. In the words of Samuel, "I think we should save face, and maybe do it another time." So maybe another time, maybe not. Sorry to all my fans out there but it was a no show.

How do you say 'Santa' in Khmer?

I hope I’m not letting anybody down, but there are currently no new massive adventures to report on, I’m thinking my raft adventure will be hard to follow anyways. However, just to keep my homies all updated this is what’s going on:
 

For those of you who haven’t heard, I accidentally deleted my entire iTunes library. You’d think that the ‘IT Support Specialist’ would know how to not delete an entire music collection on accident, but here we are. Perhaps it’s a reminder to the world that I’m really not that much of an ‘IT guy,’ it’s more of a hobby than anything really; but I do love the work I’ve done here. Thankfully a few of the other MCCers have similar music tastes (as in awesome) as I do and have helped me get both old and new artists in my library. To my delight, one of them was Sufjans Stevens’ X-mas album. It’s a great CD and was a complete reminder to me that it’s actually ‘Christmas Time.’ In Phnom Penh you’ll find a few western shops and offices try to imitate a few decorations and jingle bells as reminders and there’s even blowup Santa Clause next the Russian Market right now, but to be honest it all feels a little out of place. It’s pretty amazing how stimulated we are by decorations and atmosphere back home. The snow alone is a symbol of the holidays, so here I just don’t even seem to react to the idea of Christmas. Which is probably a good thing because I’m not going to be celebrating it in the same sense that I’m used to. No decorating of a tree, atmospheric Christmas music resonating through the house, or smell of delicious holiday-themed treats floating round the kitchen. I admit for well that I’ll miss the family gatherings and spending time with relatives in Illinois and Indiana, but to my comfort I’ll be spending the last stretch of December back in Sihanoukville (again) and then to Siem Reap so Merry Christmas!
  

In similar news, my Church is doing some sort of Christmas-celebration-thing on the 10th and 12th and once again I really don’t have any idea what it actually is – my Khmer is still improving slightly but when it comes to listening to church meetings in Khmer I’d have a better chance of learning how to do kung-fu by magic than to actually hear and understand what people are saying. Then it happened. If you read my blog post about ‘Friendship Camp’ in Sihanoukville you’ll be familiar with my Justin Beiber/Sean Kingston performance. Well turns out they want an encore for the Christmas bash. This time Samuel and I are doing the song ‘Enie Meenie’ karaoke style on a stage in front of dozens of Khmer kids. My host brother emphasized that it be a good performance since there were going to be non-believers there. He went on to ask me if ‘Enie Meenie’ was a Christian song. “Not in this universe.” “Well, what’s the message,” he asked. I responded, “Ummm, it’s kinda about girls who play around with this guys heart. But he wants a girl who will love him for real.” Then my brother smiled at me as if he had a solution, “Ok so after the song you can give a testimony talking about how sometimes girls will play with your heart and give you love that’s not real. But Jesus’ love is real and he will always love you and never play with your heart.” And the go-ahead has been given, I will rock the house with all my heart and soul on the 12th of December, that’s a promise.
  

Aight so that’s enough talky, here are some bullet points to give a little more detail to what’s new:
  

I’m back in Prey Veng right now for 3 days to do some computer work. We drove out to a school in the rural parts to have a meeting and the way there I got to ride in the truck bed the entire way and then we got stuck in the mud while passing through one of the villages. I got to get out and help push. It’s a total off-roading adventure because the ‘roads’ have all kinds of imperfections and would actually be a great place to bring some 4-wheelers or dirt bikes. Confirmed: I am a country boy at heart and wish I were spending more time out here, the villages are so beautiful.
  

I’ll be starting my web design class soon, I’ve gotten word that I have 5 confirmed students. Need to write my own lesson plan, should be fun.
  

The honeymoon stage of SALT has started to wear off, but I don’t expect the depression stage to really sink in. Phnom Penh has lost it’s initial excitement for me but I’m not ready to go home by any means, there’s still a lot of experience to be had.
  

The other week I was walking down the street and a man wearing a shark costume came up to me and asked me in Khmer if “I’d be interested in learning how to make hammocks.” He said he was going to travel around the countryside and sell them to villages and he wanted an apprentice. I told him I was interested and he took me to a small stand in the Russian Market where he worked. But everyone there was wearing hats with frowny faces on them.  He had one for me and told me to wear it, I told him that “I’m not the kind of guy to wear these hats because I’m a happy person.”  He frowned at me and told me there is no room in his hammock team for someone like me. Oh well, maybe some other day.
  

One of the bullet points I made is not real.
  

Ok well I hope everyone is doing well and in good health. I know I’ve made half-ass plans to skype with some people and I’m sorry for not making it happen for real. So if you’re one of those people who want to skype I am definitely down, send me an email or something and let’s set a time :D

The Raging Mekong and recent events.

It's only been a few weeks since my last post but already so much has passed by that I haven't gotten around to. I've had a few incredible weeks here as of late but this post will focus primarily on my 2 week old river adventure (Nov 13-14). One of my fellow MCC worker-friends named Daniel invited me to join a group of expats in Phnom Penh that was planning on doing a rafting adventure down the Mekong River. The Mekong is a huge river that tears through SouthEast Asia (see the wikipedia page to learn more.) As I talked to Daniel I found out that we were not only trying to raft down the Mekong river, but we were going to aimlessly drive 100 kilometers away from Phnom Penh, jump out at a farming village and ask some random local to teach us how to build a raft out of banana trees, build the raft, float down the river all day, then spend the night in the wilderness sleeping in hammocks. I said I was interested.

Note: Sorry I don't have good quality photos of this event, we all took video and are hoping to compile the footage sometime.

After work friday night the four of us expats hopped in a cab and headed up to Kampong Cham, a small city on the river bank where we would wake up at the crack of dawn and start our adventure. After clearly eating someone's leftovers for breakfast at a nearby market we grabbed food and water for the trip and jumped on some motos and headed into a nearby village. Now just so you all know -- Daniel and one of the other expats, Steve, speak pretty good Khmer so we were able to make pretty clear conversation with the locals. This was absolutely necessary because English is pretty rare in the more rural parts of Cambodia (obviously). So after telling our plan to the villagers we got laughed at quite a lot. "Chquet," which means "Crazy," was a pretty common word used to describe us. It took some warming up to (and some money offers), but eventually the locals gave into the idea and agreed to help us build a raft. We ended up following this old woman who looked to be probably 150 years old into her back yard where we found a nice selection of banana trees. I've come to learn that banana trees are absolutely perfect for making rafts which was great for us because they were plentiful out here. The next three hours were spent working and learning how to make a raft. I must say it really was an incredible process to watch and the raft turned out fantastic. Using only a machete, axe and line of string, the whole lot of us were able to construct a ghetto-looking raft out of banana and bamboo trees. We even got a makeshift sail up and it was buoyant enough to keep the four of us afloat as long as we stood in our respected corners of the raft.

Raft construction while the local children watch and laugh.

We pushed off the shore around 10:45 and waved goodbye to our raft-making teachers and new friends feeling content with how kind and helpful they all were. At this point we were all on top of the world because it had actually worked out, perhaps even better than we originally hoped. Our raft was badass to say the least. We were slowly cruising down the Mekong on a banana raft and it felt awesome. Most the day was spent swimming along side the raft, abandoning ship to jump on the shore to see how ballin' our raft looked and do some cliff jumping, relaxing, enjoying the view, and simply being totally cool white people. We waved to the people along the coast who were washing their cows and horses in the river and talked to fishermen as they cruised by our tiny (but respectable) watercraft. Every conversation ended up in laughs and giggles as we told people we were trying to take the raft all 100 kilometers back to Phnom Penh. It's not everyday 4 white guys sail down the Mekong river on a banana raft so we had a lot of fun with it. We were at the mercy of the Mekong and it was very kind to us, perhaps a bit too gentle actually.

My three shipmates swim to shore to cliff jump as I man the raft.

Unfortunately, we were quick to discover why people thought it was so crazy for us to want to float all the way to Phnom Penh. The Mekong river, which was supposed to be fast-moving and slightly dangerous, was more like the lazy river you find at a water park. Our average trip speed was something like 1.5 kilometers an hour. As the sun was going down we had only traveled 14 kilometers -- only 14% of the way there. We had all figured we weren't going to actually make it to Phnom Penh, but it wasn't really too heart breaking. At this point the sun was going to set soon and we were in the dead center of one of the worlds biggest rivers. We needed to get to shore within the hour and didn't have way of effectively getting there. We all jumped off the raft and did the only thing that seemed to get that fat little raft to move -- we got behind it and pushed. Now for those of you who know me, you know I'm super duper strong and have monster biceps (for those of you who don't know me, I'm kidding). It was exhausting and I'm not sure I've ever done that much swimming before, but the four of us managed to get the raft to shore before the sun went down.

More raft construction, I was doing more watching/less working at this point.

Our original plan was to set up camp in the wilderness and spend the night in our hammocks. Unfortunately, in our current location we were surrounded by small farming villages so we didn't have many options as to where we would dock considering we couldn't be on the water with the sun down. For a moment I want you to think what you would do if you lived in a rural farming village in Cambodia, had never seen a white person before, and had been told a banana raft with 4 white men on board was about to touch shore in your backyard. What would you do? The correct answer is watch, and that's what the entire village did, I'd guess close to 70 people stood on the bank (including naked babies, but no monkeys) and stared in awe as we walked our tiny raft to shore (I kind of felt like Christopher Columbus, but without the intention of taking all their land). After a lot of talking and a crap-ton of being stared at we eventually got the situation under control. There was a guy in the village about my age who was attending university in Phnom Penh and spoke good english who must of felt like a total super hero because he was our link to the village and form of communication even though Steve and Daniel speak good Khmer -- they'd rather have a Cambodian do the translating. We were offered dinner at his sisters house and talked about getting a ride back to Phnom Penh in the morning since he just so happened to be going in a van the next day - worked out pretty well for us. After snarfing down a bunch of onions, eggs, and MSG whilst being stared at by 50 villagers (we counted), we were then all questioned by the 'village police.' I can't imagine these guys had a very exciting job and they were all over us and our situation. The whole process got kind of annoying even though they just wanted information, but we really didn't even want to stay in the village and just wanted to go to bed. After all, we were pretty beat from the recent water aerobics. We set up our hammocks, talked to the police and hit they hay.

Now there are a few mysteries I've come to find in Cambodia. A new one I discovered this particular night was, "How in all that is holy do people in the village sleep?" A group of men (most drunk) having a long, jolly ol' conversation. A woman with a crying baby. A man with cell phone and a friend who apparently likes to make calls at 4 in the morning. A rooster. Cows. The sound of a generator. Rave music. These things along with a few other sounds I honestly can't even describe equal my sleeping experience. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of sleep that night, but I was definitely ready to get in that van at 5:30. At this point the adventure was over and our mission may not have been 'accomplished' but I would definitely consider it 'complete.' We built a raft from scratch and floated down the Mekong river all day long, how cool is that? We slept in some rural village and hitched a ride back into Phnom Penh the following morning - who does that? There's probably plenty more tiny things that could be said about this trip but I'll just leave it be for now. Bottom line I had an adventure and it was so good. And I managed not to get eaten by a shark or some crazy river dragon.

That's the word. What else to say? This past weekend was Water Festival (4 day weekend with 2 holidays) in Phnom Penh where people from all over Cambodia come to celebrate the end of the rainy season and have boat races, concerts, and a whole bunch of other fun things. I however, decided not to join the festivities due to the fact that it is apparently always overcrowded and these 4 days were just begging me to go to the beach. So I went back down to Sihanoukville for some winding down, and it was fantastic. Had a great weekend but came home to some very sad news. On the last day of the festival there was a stampede on one of the bridges by the riverside and some 450 people have been confirmed dead. Glad I ditched town this weekend, but hope we can all be praying for the families of those who were killed or injured. Tomorrow has been a declared a national day of mourning which happens to also be Thanksgiving. A bit strange to tell people I'll be giving thanks on the day of mourning. Anyways, hope everyone back home has a great turkey day and that all is well.

Peace.

The Beaches of October

I haven't written in a while so I made it long.

Last weekend I was invited by my host brother to go down south to the beaches of Sihanoukville with a group of Cambodians from various local churches. Originally I didn't really know what to expect from the experience. I was told that this was a "youth camp" (also called 'Friendship Camp') with "kids." As I've learned so far, in Cambodia it's best not to make expectations because they've never been very accurate. I actually initially thought this camp was going to be on the weekend before it actually was - I've learned that leaving on "Thursday" doesn't necessarily mean "this Thursday" (this has happened on several occasions). I also ended up coming home a day earlier than I thought - I didn't really find out until we were boarding the bus home - "oh we're going home now? Whatever you say."

Anyways, Thursday morning I find myself hopping on a bus with about 25-30 Cambodians who all look between the ages of 16-25. These were the "kids" I was going to be joining for "friendship camp." The idea behind friendship camp is for the older kids (21-25) to be friends with the younger kids (15-20) for the weekend and have a space to worship and learn about Jesus - I ended up being somewhere in the middle, mostly as good company. On the bus, we were joined by 9 adults from Singapore that were sponsoring the event and brought a lot of leadership and energy to the group. So as the bus was nearing the final destination I was content knowing I was in the company of friendly, loving people that were all excited about the gospel - what a great place to be.

Friendship Camp 2010. Can you find Waldo?

We all stayed at a hotel called 'Holiday' which was a 5 minute walk from the beach and spent most of our time in hotel meeting room singing songs and praising God. Anytime there was a moment when someone would ask the audience to volunteer or share something, most the Cambodians nervously looked around and would always say, "Michael! Michael!" Being the only white kid in a group of 30 people has it's baggage, and makes you a very popular figure (especially if someone needs to be singled out!). But I didn't mind, I actually thought it was quite fun to be involved as much as possible, and Cambodians have become well known to make sure EVERYONE is involved. I would get stares on the beach when people would walk by this massive ball of Cambodian youth acting crazy only to see a white kid in the middle of the cluster acting just as crazy as everyone else. It felt good.

The second day two foreigners approached me during breakfast wondering what the heck I was doing with all these people and if there were other foreigners with me (they saw me on the beach). I explained to them my situation and they eventually told me that one of them was a Clairvoyant (look it up) which was a neat experience in itself, there aren't exactly a lot of them walking around the beaches of Cambodia these days. After morning worship we went to a local restaurant which would become very familiar - we went here for every single meal during the retreat, thankfully they had a variety of food. Sihanoukville is well known for it's fresh seafood and everyone laughed and watched as I had to guess how to eat a crab.

On the second day we went to the market after lunch to get some food for a big BBQ we were planning on having for our final meal on the beach and I was invited to go so I could 'site see' also known as 'we need someone to carry the food.' But it was a cool site, almost a bit like an aquarium but the animals are either dead or about to die (I saw a shark lying on a table, still alive but probably not for long). To get home we decided that there was no reason for us to take more than 1 tuk tuk for the seven of us and the giant cooler of food (a tuk tuk usually fits 4). I sat on the outside of the cart on something that definitely wasn't a seat holding on to the roof as it was the only support I could find. I had fun talking to the moto driver who spoke good english but also encouraged me to speak Khmer - we had a nice conversation and he eventually asked me where I work. It's hard to explain in a new language so I ended up saying, "I work for a Jesus organization." The funny part came next; he then told me he knew Jesus and that Jesus teaches him Taekwondo. I think we know a different Jesus...

Back to the hotel and back to being a friend. Over the week I got to know many of the kids better and now have good friendships with many of kids who attend my church. One specific bonding experience was with the church drummer Samuel who likes to listen to american pop music. I wasn't proud to represent that music genre but I definitely know the songs, and we sang them together in the hotel room as I did the robot. He likes Justin Beiber and the song 'enie minie' just came out -click here to listen- we grooved to the Beibster. I learned that by being myself helped the others feel comfortable around me and they were entertained by the idea of this slightly crazy american hanging out amongst the group. I also ended up having a group of girls around the age of 16 flirt with me - I usually didn't know what they were saying but lots of giggles - nice! "Michael do you know what 'Sraalan' means?" It's the verb for, "to love." Don't worry everyone, I haven't gotten married yet and I'm not pregnant.

So now we tell the final tale of the adventure, my favorite part. The last night eating BBQ on the beach. We swam, we played soccer, we played the guitar, and we played games. Then we fired up the grill and got our fill of squid, shrimp, pork, fish, coca-cola, pineapple, and other tasty sides. This is where things quickly escalated from awesome to super awesome. To my right kids started shooting off fireworks in honor of the Kings birthday. My left was entertained by monkeys swinging in a nearby tree as a local started doing some form of fire juggling. The sun was setting in front of me and I was surround by great company - then we started passing out glow sticks. By body nearly exploded from shear amazement. "This is all the stuff that's awesome, how could this night get any better?" After walking the beach with Samuel and another friend we returned to find the rest of the group had started a big singing and dancing ball of wonder. We marched in a circle clapping, laughing and singing (or pretending to sing, I don't know many Khmer songs). Small children and a baby with only a t-shirt found that glow sticks and a white kid was a great source of entertainment, the basically naked baby chased me around the circle for hours poking my leg with a glow stick, I couldn't stop laughing. Then it was my turn to contribute to the circle of song and dance. "Michael do you know the song 'Beautiful Girl?'" It took me a while, but they were talking about Sean Kingston, and they wanted me to sing the song in the middle of the circle. I only know the chorus to that song and can't say it's on my iTunes - with that in mind i said, "of course I'll sing it!" - I was high on life to the max. I sang the chorus 3 times and danced in the circle and everyone laughed, then they wanted another song... this is when I made either the best decision or worst decision in my life. Looking to Samuel in the crowd I said let's sing 'enie minie' together. The circle was clapping and we were stars, again I only knew the chorus "Shorty is an enie menie miney moe lova" so I didn't know to what to do for the chorus, because Samuel definitely knew it - so I did what I always do in this scenario - I laid down a fat beat. Beat boxing in a circle of Cambodian high schoolers is a great experience and I recommend it to anyone who gets the opportunity.

Me and SoKun sippin on a cup of good times.

We left the next day renewed in our experience and happy to have made new friends both from Singapore and Cambodia. This weekend taught me a few things that I can carry throughout Cambodia. We can be in our home congregation or we can be halfway around the world listening to a sermon we can't translate. We can be at home enjoying the company of our close friends or we can be on the beaches of Sihanoukville making new ones. We literally can be on the other side of the world and we can still be ourselves. No matter where we go or how we conduct our business we can find the love of God and the love of others. It's mighty powerful.

Siem Reap

Looking super fly in front of one of the famous Angkor Wat temples.

Oh hey it's me again, this time writing about a great vacation to Siem Reap, famously known as home to Angkor Wat. So the trip was awesome if I really need to tell you. We got to Siem Reap after a 6 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh on Wednesday - the following Thursday and Friday were national holidays so we were off of work, we couldn't get a bus ticket on Thursday so had to convince ourselves to go a day early, wasn't too hard.

Siem Reap was definitely a change of scenery, lots and lots of tourists. This atmosphere made it even more comfortable for us. All kinds of restaurants lined the streets with foods you don't really find in Phnom Penh and everyone and their dog spoke some sort of english. We were actually praised for being able to speak Khmer - lots of, "Your Khmer is very good!" (it's not). As I stated in a previous post, you don't get any mexican food in Cambodia, but sure enough there was a restaurant in the downtown that served dollar tacos. To me finding dollar tacos is probably the same feeling that Indiana Jones had when he found the Holy Grail. Makes me miss Goshen a bit, and of course late night Tbell runs ("Tbell runs," as in going to taco bell to get tacos, not the morning-after effect).

Siem Reap also has a pretty hopping night life as you could expect, Pub street is packed every night with all sorts of foreigners and fun things to do. It's a nice way to get away from Cambodia and feel like your in *insert big US city*. It was also a good time for us SALTers. Just like when you get to college you learn to live by a 'no parents' mentality (which is an important part of college life and good way to make mistakes), Siem Reap was a bit like the same experience where MCC and our host families would be our 'parents.' Whether it was staying up past 12, eating as much junk food I wanted, or having a few more, uh, sodas than usual - I got to feel like my college-loving self for a few days, which was really nice.

Awesome Awesome Awesome Awesome

We went to see the temples on Friday, which was my main reason for the vacation - a similar feel to what Machu Pichu was in Peru. The temples were absolutely beautiful, I recommend seeing the photos I'll soon post on facebook in my Cambodia album. What didn't go as expected was the experience with the tour guide. Now this is a very interesting story indeed. If you were going to a world famous tourist location to see one of the most beautiful constructions on earth, you would hope to pay for a tour guide that is informative and very helpful in showing you around the sites. Is that what we got? Well if by 'informative' you mean sexually frustrated and by 'helpful' you mean constantly inappropriate, that's what we got. Before we got to the site, he smoothly changed his speech about Hindu Gods into a reference to the "snake in my trousers" comfortably referring to me and pointing to my crotchal region. Yes, I admit I laughed a bit at first, as it was funny and unexpected. However, the series of events that were to occur crossed the line over and over. I was mildly annoyed, but I shared this tour with 3 girls and how that changes group dynamics on such a topic. So it tainted the experience a little bit but it did not make the temples any less beautiful, really they were breathtaking. There are plenty of things that could be said but none too helpful. We are also to blame for not directly telling him to stop. Oh well, I do plan on getting a chance to visit again so I'm not to worried about it.

Amazing Amazing Amazing Amazing

So to sum it up, I had a great 4/5 days relaxing in Siem Reap and found the temples to be absolutely fascinating, anyone who plans to visit Cambodia has my recommendation to go see them. The city is a great way to let off some steam and feel like a foreigner and I hope to back sometime in the future. Now I'm back in the MCC office working away, thanks to everyone who have been sending me email and keeping in touch, I really appreciate it. Miss you all, take care, God bless.

There goes the some, here awakens Pub Street

Feeling the love

Well it’s been another great few weeks here in the Kingdom of Wonder. Starting tomorrow the gang heads out to Siem Riep to visit Cambodia’s #1 tourist attraction Angkor Wat – which I’m pretty sure was a finalist for the “New seven wonders of the world.” So it should be pretty awesome. These last few weeks have treated me particularly well and I’ve come to label my Sundays as a new favorite day.

“The seventh day was created as an awesome day and the
people are to either rest or play lots of futsol.”

-Somewhere in the Old Testament.

I want to start this section out by saying Cambodians are very friendly. I’ve been very fortunate to find myself surrounded by many Cambodians who make a very real effort to include me in their society. Even though the Christian community is small here in Phnom Penh, it is full of life and energy. It’s also very young which has been great, especially when watching Cambodians shred on the guitar during the church service, rock and roll. I’ve been a bit annoyed by the fact I understand very little of the church service but I do really enjoy the atmosphere. After church most the young adults stick around, talk, play music, play ping-pong, or other things that I naturally enjoy doing. Of course they always make an effort to include me if possible. I’m currently undefeated in ping-pong since I’m guessing most of you are curious.

So as if my time in the church isn’t already a trip to Pleasure Island, they also invite me to play in a Men’s futsol league (like indoor soccer). Basically a bunch of guys at various ages get together every Sunday and play for a few hours. I’m the youngest guy there (I think – it’s very hard to tell a Cambodians age) but I don’t mind, the skill level is right where I want it to be and everyone enjoys playing as much as I do. Nobody minds that a foreigner joined their league, in fact they told me to invite friends if I wanted to. I’ve only been there twice and already feel like part of the crew. On a scale from 1 to Awesome these guys are super awesome.

Other than having a hundred friends there isn’t much more to report. I feel like I’m getting pretty good at riding the moto. I’ve had several people tell me I drive “like a Cambodian.” Even a Cambodian told me I drive more like a Cambodian than he does. What does this mean? Well I’m pretty sure they mean that I drive aggressively – I’ve had little trouble getting rid of street “laws” and “rules” that Cambodia doesn’t have. If you want to drive on the other side of the road go ahead and do it, they’ll probably stop. I like to think this makes me a good driver – sorry Mom, but there’s no feeling like when you’re riding down the highway with the wind in your hair whilst doing an awesome wheelie.

Ok, well I’ll have lots to say when I get back from Siem Riep so I’ll leave you with some bullet points:

• Language is going well. I can complete sentences and talk to people sometimes.
• My stomach is happy. The food has been great and I haven’t had any serious problems that the butt hose can’t fix.
• I’ve seen lots of dragons.
• I have a bunch of girlfriends.

Prey Veng… Monkey Island

Me sitting with my hipster Khmer shirt. The front says "SAME SAME" and the back "BUT DIFFERENT." It's what the cool kids where so I pretty much wear it by default.

It’s been a little while since my last update but do not fear my dear blog followers, for I have plenty to write about today. Last weekend the three other SALTers and I took a trip east to the city of Prey Veng (to be later thought of as the land of adventure and home to the monkeys).

This is where we stayed.

After work on Friday the gang took a 3-hour bus ride with fellow MCCers Ryan and Daphne Fowler to Prey Veng (where the Fowlers work.). Not knowing what to expect and planning on under-packing, I threw two t-shirts and some shorts into a backpack and said, “I’m ready.” PV (short for Prey Veng) is a small city full of life and surrounded by rice paddies. It was exactly what I had been looking for: a chance to breathe some open air, see some greenery, and find some adventure.

After the bus ride, we hiked on down to Ryan and Daphne’s house where we would be settlin’ down for the next few days. The house had a large living room, both a front yard AND backyard (unheard of in Phnom Penh), acoustic guitar, and a hammock – at this point I was thinking, “the only thing missing here is an island full of monkeys (as I often do).” But Ryan reassured me that Prey Veng had that too, so I was happy. The rest of the even was spent biking throughout the town and peering across the beautiful riverside – also known as a bunch of flooded rice paddies.

Look kids! A white person parade!

The next morning we got up bright and early and toured the countryside on our motos. Riding over bumpy bridges and through muddy dirt roads was a lot of fun, I even think I got some pretty good air and often thought about poppin’ sweet wheelies, but decided not too since I don’t know how and motos are pretty heavy. After a great day of exploration and a visit to the local market we all sat down back at the Fowler’s crib and ate tacos – pure delight for me since I haven’t had anything remotely close to a taco since landing in Cambodia. Will someone please mail me a Cheesy Double Beef from Taco Bell? That’d be nice.

Rice Paddies glow a green you wouldn't believe

The next morning was upon my lovely face and I was so ready for the road ahead – the road to MONKEY ISLAND!!! But first thing’s first! Remember those tacos last night? I put the butt hose to good use once again! Ok so after we attended yet another church service in which I had no idea what was being said – the pastor could have been talking about SpaghettiO’s for all I know – it was Lewis and Clark time (safely assuming the Lewis and Clark expedition was created to search for primates).

The "road" to Monkey Island

After biking a ways out of the city we soon realized the rest of the journey was going to have to be on foot due to a flooded road. 1 minute into the walk we decided it would be more of a “swim” since the water was already above our waist – it was fun. With a hand full of bananas, the time was finally here. All kinds of monkeys came out of who-knows-where and had their fill. I still don’t understand why it’s so much fun to watch a monkey eat a banana but it just is. I could have stayed their all day; however I had no more bananas and the monkeys started looking at us in a way that said, “You look like a banana.” After some locals laughed at us for swimming to the island instead of taking the boat, we swam back to our bicycles and went back home.

Wake up you monkeys!

I managed to join a game of soccer before the day ended and found myself realizing that cleats might not be a bad investment. I spent about as much time on my ass as on my feet, the field was full of mud patches and I’m glad to have been able to entertain the local kids by showing them how to properly fall into a pile of mud every 23 seconds. Anyways, It was great to get some exercise again and play with Cambodians. At the end of the day I wasn’t quite ready to go back to Phnom Penh, but I’ll have another chance to visit Prey Veng again and soak in all its beauty.

That sums up the trip pretty well even though more can be said. Other than that things have been going great. My host family is going very well and I’m starting to find my mold in the city. Hope all is going well back home. God bless you all.

Peace yo,

Michael

The Host Fam

Well hello there reader!

On the last episode of me being in Slambodia I talked about getting adjusted to the city and life at the MCC office. In this weeks episode I’ve added an audience-grabbing twist where I move in with a host family, if you want to hear what happens next, don’t touch that dial because I’ll tell you now.

So about 4 days ago I met my host brother Sitha Long, he is the one responsible for setting me up with his family so I’m most thankful for his willingness to open his home to me. After grabbing my all my luggage and hopping on the back of his moto (yes, imagine seeing a white guy – called a “baraang” - in Phnom Penh on the back of a scooter carrying two backpacks and a large suitcase down the main road) we quickly got to my new house. Lucky for me I live incredibly close to the MCC office, it’s about a 5 minute walk. Anyway, to my excitement I found my new living situation tucked back into a small alleyway surrounded by what appears to be all my close relatives. In my house I have one brother (Sitha) 30 yrs old, three sisters from 26 to mid 30’s, and a ma and pa – I’m guessing they’re in their 60’s. To be very honest, it is quite hard to guess a Cambodian’s age. Most of the people I’ve met look younger than me but are usually 4 or more years older. I’ve also met a variety of around 8 others living around me (relatives I think). It will also probably take the whole year for me to remember anyone’s name – Sopheat, Sitha, Punboen? Amaripon? and maybe a Jackie Chan from what I can remember. One guy told me his name was George Washington but I’m skeptical. People don’t have too much trouble saying my name although my Khmer teacher usually refers to me as Michelle and most people who meet me for the first time like to call me Michael Jackson.

(Disclaimer: when I refer to my ‘brother, sister, mom, etc’ I’m referring to my host family)

So anyways, from the experience I’ve had so far I absolutely love my host family. My brother and one of my sisters both speak pretty good English, other than that I’m a bit on my own. My brother just left for Singapore for 2 weeks and the sister isn’t around much so these next 10 days will be interesting. I was actually officially made an English teacher yesterday when all the children who live around me came over to my house with a white board. I was just sitting there reading a book, but after about 5 minutes I picked up on the hint and started writing some words down. I now have a class of about 6 ranging from 6-15yrs old (again I don’t really know) and they really like to learn. At least teaching English helps me learn my basic Khmer because the learning level is about the same for both of us. The kids are pretty adorable as well so I won’t be saying ‘no’ to them anytime soon.

(Michael now realizes this post is getting long)

What else you ask? Well I’ll tell you. I originally had low expectations for the food as any SALTer really should, but I will tell you crackas that my mom and sister are too legit to quit. I usually have rice and a soup-type-dish everyday, but at the same time they have been making meat dishes as well [Side story!] My sister has a small BBQ store at the end of the alley and makes what my brother calls “Village Chicken/Pork/Beef” [Side story over!] I might have learned a few things about Cambodia since my stay here, but the thing I’ve learned the most is that I could eat this stuff all day and all night for the rest of my life. They marinate this meat in something sinfully good and I plan on learning the recipe before I leave. I’m quite a lucky little boy because my mom in the states is a great cook and my family in Cambodia is awesome as well – I think it’s called Karma.

(Michael realizes this is now longer than most people care for)

To wrap things up, I will say that I’m very happy with my situation. My family is very kind and patient with me and my brother is easy to get along with and has taken me around the city in our free time; which has been awesome. This upcoming week I will start doing some actual work. Oh and before I leave: I learned how to ride the moto (it’s like a moped) and realized I’m not qualified to teach others how to ride the moto… I also haven’t used toilet paper since I’ve been in my host house – dare to ask how? Fine, I’ll tell you. Well I don’t know the proper term for it but we have a butt-hose. The End.

Som Lia Haey,

Michael

See all my photos here.

The Office

Now that I've been fully moved into the MCC office I thought I'd give you all a quick tour.

Moto parking. I got to ride one today!

This is my desk.

In front of the office.

Liz and Nicole in the lounge.

The roof, perfect for watching the downpours.

My temporary room, complete with mosquito net.

That's the office in a nutshell. Now I'm off to my host family, who I will post pictures of soon.

The Feel

It hasn't quite been a week yet but it already feels like I've been here for a month. I've been plenty busy lately being a tourist and getting to know the city, people, and culture. I've got my own desk set up at the MCC office and have been comforted to know that I don't 'really' need to start work for like a week or so, which is nice because I'm not quite ready to settle in. The SALT group has had plenty of time to get to know one another through stories and time spent together and I basically feel like I gained three new sisters. We've had the opportunity to visit more restaurants. I've had a good variety of Cambodian, Thai, Chinese, Indonesian and Indian food which is keeping me quite happy so far, we've also had a chance to indulge in some tasty street vendor snacks.

In other news, we've started language class with our awesome and hilarious professor name Sochiet. Every morning for an hour the four of us practice our Khmer and prepare ourselves for some useful conversation - which is much needed. I've been proud to see we've managed to get around the city on our own, without being able to say more than a handful of mispronounced cambodian words. Just last night we watched our Tuk Tuk driver drive 25 minutes in the wrong direction because we didn't really know how to tell him to turn around and we didn't really know exactly where to go either, but we made it back eventually.

The tourist part of the adventure has been quite enjoyable for me. We took it upon ourselves to visit the National Museum and Royal Palace with the free time we've been given. I'm completely in love with the buildings and courtyards of these places, they are absolutely gorgeous (especially the roof tops). The Royal Palace has been my favorite visit thus far, it started pouring rain right when we got inside the main building and it was quite lovely watching the rain fall throughout the Palace. They had artists working on paintings and a group of people playing music in the courtyard who ended up inviting me to play with them - this made my day. I'm looking forward to doing more tourists visits and eventually going to Angkor Wat.

That sums up what's been going on lately, I'll be moving in with my host family soon which I'm very anxious about. Looking forward to it. Here are some photos!

National Museum

Royal Palace

Awesome Roof at Royal Palace

Day 1

Today officialy starts the adventure. After the long trip over the Pacific, we pretty much skipped Friday and landed early August 21st in Phnom Penh, Cambodia - the final destination. The trip overall went really smooth, no delayed or canceled flights and the 14 hour flight from LAX to Hong Kong was quite comfortable and the private headrest tv screens gave me plenty of entertainment. The process of actually getting into the country could not have been more easy, good thing I choose Cambodia over Bangladesh (that was my other potential placement). The 3 SALTers who were supposed to go to Bangladesh ended up going else where because they couldn't get their visas, here they practically handed them to us and told us to have a good time.

*

Before I go on I should probably highlight that I'm here with three other SALTers: Liz Andes, Nicole Geiger, and LynAnne Wiest.

After arriving at the MCC office, which is where we will all be staying for a week or so, we met most of the MCC crew and got a much needed shower. We then jumped into some Tuk Tuks and hit up a local Chinese restaurant (awesome dumplings) it was tasty times ten. Afterwards, one of the many MCC couples took us out to visit the central market along with some good site-seeing spots--most names I don't recall even slightly. At one of the temples we saw an elephant and a whole bunch of monkeys. To my enjoyment these monkeys were completely used to humans and would walk right beside you, I will probably try to claim one as a pet. There was this little old lady sitting next to the temple with a bag full of fruit just handing them out to the monkeys, she told us she does it everyday--I wish I had her job, I seriously could have watched those primates eat bananas for hours, but we had more to do.

We got some super tasty drinks at a really relaxed coffee place which helped keep us from falling flat on our faces from the jet lag. I got an iced coffee w/ sweetened concentrated milk. Later we walked down a few nearby streets and got a quick tour of some good restaurants/stores as well as an early dinner at an authentic Cambodian restaurant. Let me say this, I wasn't really expecting a whole lot from Cambodian cuisine, but this stuff was awesome. Even though I know that we're getting a bit spoiled since it's our first day, I'm really excited to have the opportunity to eat these foods more consistently.

So now dinner's done and I'm back at the MCC office in my temporary bedroom trying to resist sleep until I can justify a reasonable bedtime (8:00) I'm hoping to get my body into a healthy sleep cycle early. All I can say at this point is that my first day has been incredible. The fellow MCCers I've met so far are very friendly and the city is ballin', I'm looking forward to getting a bit more familiar with it. From what I can make out of the culture and the people here is that they are very relaxed and polite. Phnom Penh has some tourists here so they don't go too crazy when they see a Tuk Tuk full of white people.

As for the next few days I'm excited to learn more about the city, meet more people, ride a moto, eat more of this awesome food, and start learning the language. I'll try to get some photos up soon so you can get a better picture of what I'm up to.

Take care,

Michael

Orientation closed.

Well this is my last night in Akron PA. I leave for Philly airport at 1:30 and will fly over the Pacific to Hong Kong before landing in Phnom Penh. Fly out the 19th and land the 21st, yikes - jet lag will not be kind to me. Looking forward to getting in Cambodia at last, let's get it on!

Getting Ready

Hello everyone,

This will be my blog for my adventure over in Cambodia this upcoming year. It's coming up real soon, I head out to orientation the 12th of August and will be there for a week. Then I go to Cambodia on the 19th or something like that. I hear the trip will take something like 25 hours, neato.

If any of you have Skype you should add me, my username is coneman02

Anyways, hope you enjoy the blog.